Humboldt Broncos alumnus living in Glace Bay connecting with former teammates following tragedy

Humboldt Broncos' Nick Shumlanski, who was released from hospital earlier in the day, is comforted by a mourner during a vigil at the Elgar Petersen Arena, home of the Humboldt Broncos, to honour the victims of a fatal bus accident in Humboldt, Sask., on Sunday. - The Canadian Press

‘Once a Bronco, always a Bronco’

SYDNEY, N.S. — A Glace Bay man who once played for the Humboldt Broncos is mourning the loss of 15 people who died after the team bus was involved in a head-on collision with a transport truck on a prairie highway on Friday.

“This is horrific – it’s a tragedy,” said Bill O’Brien, who spent four seasons with the well-known Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League team before moving to Cape Breton to play university hockey with the Capers.

Bill O'Brien

Reached by telephone while on a family vacation in Western Canada, the 48-year-old local finance industry employee said he’s been recalling his own time with the Broncos since learning of the horrific crash that happened while the team was on the way to a playoff game against the Nipawin Hawks.

O’Brien said he’s spent much of the past couple of days connecting with former teammates and friends from his hockey-playing days in Saskatchewan.

“The message that has come across from a lot of my old teammates is basically that once a Bronco, always a Bronco, and I’ve reached out to guys and guys have reached out to me that I haven’t heard from in 20 years,” he said.

“We’re just thinking about each other at this time because once you are a part of that organization it becomes part of you – I spent four years there, so as a former junior player I understand the camaraderie that goes on, especially on the bus.”

In fact, O’Brien said the long bus trips were especially fun and served as a vehicle for team bonding.

“I remember being on the bus at the age of 17 or 18 and thinking that this was the greatest thing going, I mean I was playing hockey full-time, we’re on the bus with all the camaraderie of your teammates and driving through Saskatchewan and seeing the wide-open prairies, it was special,” said O’Brien, who moved to Humboldt to chase his hockey dreams after being raised in Waterloo, Ont. by Cape Breton parents.

“Bus trips are part of the game – even here in Cape Breton where you have the (major midget) Tradesmen whose nearest road game is Port Hood.”

O’Brien said he now finds it sadly ironic that when he first went to Saskatchewan to play hockey as a 17-year-old in 1987, there was still lots of talk of the December 1986 Swift Current Broncos bus crash that claimed the lives of four people.

“That was all the talk then – now this, it’s devastating to everybody, but especially to that community, to the people of Humboldt,” he said, adding that he and his former teammates are looking into the possibility of attending some kind of memorial service that may be held in the central Saskatchewan community of almost 6,000 people.

Meanwhile, it’s been confirmed that one of the Humboldt crash victims is Jaxson Joseph, the son of former NHLer Chris Joseph, who also played 129 games for the Cape Breton Oilers between 1989 and 1992.